ETCHING MY BOOK

From collage, drawing and printing to etching

The story of blue 

In a land of nothing but sea there lived a boy 

He led a life of boredom  and routine  

Nothing diferent to do  

The only color to see was blue 

So the boy went looking for more 

Something other than blue 

Better than gold or silver 

Something he wished to be true. 

Another color, another land. 

On a boat  he sailed on 

Even if the color was the only thing to see  

Blue was already gone 

The fish, the reef; everything in color 

He didn’t know their names 

But they were still  

The best thing he had ever seen. 

By the time he got back there was blue no more  

All the colors took over  

And boredom was missed for sure. 

The boy, now a man, 

Felt guiltier than ever 

Because the familiarity of home  

Was gone forever 

So this Man learned a lesson  

That many tend to ignore 

The places that are family, 

You can’t get rid of them anymore 

They stick to you like glue 

Your childhood can’t be denied. 

Even if you try it, 

It is the biggest part of your life  

                                                                   Beatriz Almeida

Monty was hiding, although he didn’t know exactly from whom. For the last ten minutes, before he had to throw himself into a narrow and cramped wooden  cabinet full of useless items, he had been rummaging through all the important old documents and fancy scrolls that looked one touch away from collapsing into dust for the goddamn ring he had lost during a gambling game the week before. These were disposed in the opulent mahogany desk in the centre of the small and stuffy room where Mr. Bisset spent most of his time locked in, but the ring was nowhere to be seen. 

The walls around him, punctuated by dark stains, showed the result of smoking indoors and were filled with books up to the ceiling, metal racksful of colourful, poisonous drinks and weapons. A gleaming, pompous, heavy looking sword  was proudly placed atop one of the other cabinets in this room, giving a fake illusion of power and danger for those who dared to walk into the clustered room uninvited.  

Henry knew that Mr. Bisset didn’t know how to wield a sword, and, even if he once did, that ability would have been slowly taken away by his lifestyle and time. Grasping this thought, Monty pushed the pointy thing that was poking at his butt and stood still, trying to hear any shadow of movement  through the thick wooden doors. Whoever was outside five minutes ago seemed to have left. Good. – Monty thought, jumping out of the cabinet, ready to catch all the shiny and expensive things and leave the mansion forever. 

                                                                    Clara Monteiro

Some years ago, about seven according to rumours, there was a young girl from a humble and troubled family called Anne.  

Anne had long blonde hair, a round face that used to be red all the time, despite the girl being as white as the moon, she was always very sick and had troubles with sleeping for she had horrible nightmares and visions. Her parents called her “Crystal Anne”, sometimes affectionately, sometimes to mock her. She hated it. It made her feel very fragile and helpless. 

One night, as her hatred towards her parents grew stronger, she decided that she had to face her demons, face her illness, or die trying. Anne took her meds so she could force herself to fall asleep, and after a dry swallow, everything started going dark as her consciousness slipped away. 

It was completely dark. She was scared, alone and a sense of sadness she had never felt before started growing. She panicked,until she heard a familiar voice, a calm sweet voice, tell her everything would be alright. This gave her the strength she needed. She stood up and a small but strong light started to shine above her. 

She walked at least a mile, without a clear goal, just hoping she would find the origin of her illness, the origin of all those nightmares and dark times she was living. The light started fading again, and as she started to turn back, she took a glare at the most terrifying figures she had ever seen. 

A beast with a tongue tempted her; a bodiless figure stole her body; and a naked angel, without flesh in its head, calmed her, and made her comfortable during the whole process. 

Anne never woke up again.   

                                                                    David Realinho

Summer is a state of mind and Catherine could prove that. She was very independent, and she had the dream of being free, meeting people and creating stories and memories. She was nineteen years and lived in Lisbon with her mother and her brother.  

Catherine was almost twenty she decided to go on an ERASMUS exchange programme with her best friend in the Summer. She was not expecting to fall in love with an Italian and not to return to London. 

ERASMUS** 

Catherine went to her best friend’s house to pick Jane up for the airport. They were very excited because they were going to start their trip in the North of France. When they arrived in France, they ate a lot of baguettes and croissants and took a lot of pictures in the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre Museum and Notre-Dame. Then they went to Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands. They created a lot of memories and put everything that they did in their travel diary. 

Catherine fell in love with an Italian in Venice. She and Jamie had met and fallen in love very quickly. They travelled to Rome, Florence and Milan. Then Catherine didn´t want to return to Lisbon without Jamie. Thus, Jamie decided to join Catherine and Jane on their way back to Portugal so they could be happy together!  

This was Catherine’s life adventure. 

                                                                       Joana André

The dead and the broken 

Once upon a time there was a man, 

who woke up from a bad dream. 

He was lonely and terrified; it was 

the blackest view he had ever seen. 

He asked for help multiple times 

Yet, no one heard the lonely man 

Or saw those alarming signs 

Ghosts appeared in his head, 

They didn’t have a face or shape 

They were saying the man was dead 

And was tied with a tape. 

He saw that nobody was around him 

So, he started to lose his mind. 

Voices echoed in his head 

Saying “now, you’re mine” 

In his head it was raining 

He was lost in the streets 

His thoughts were draining 

And that’s when it all repeats. 

He was feeling very cold 

As if a window was open 

But that is just our world 

We are the dead and the broken. 

                                                                   Joana Carvalhal

Captains of the Sand 

It all started when a princess decided to go to the beach. She had always been very protected but very adventuress. Her dad, the king, didn’t agree with her idea but with the right protection he let her go. 

On the day of the trip the princess was very excited and full of energy. The pageant accompanied the princess to the beach. It was something new for him too. They had a good relationship, and he was the person the princess trusted the most. When they arrived there, everything was very calm. There was only a group of boys playing, who immediately  drew the princess’s attention because of their kindness and happiness. She walked towards them, and they started talking and then she realized that they were poor kids. She invited them to have lunch in the castle, but they didn’t accept the invitation because they had to stay there, waiting for the pirates.  

At first, the princess didn’t understand but then they explained that they were orphans who had to defend their  kingdom from the pirates so that they could be rewarded with… food. She asked them for the whole story, and she realized that they were sent by the king. The princess was very shocked by the fact that her father allowed little children to risk their lives for his kingdom; this was work for the knights and warriors. The princess was dissatisfied with the situation, so she talked to her father and tried to make him change his mind. After a long argument she managed to convince him that something had to change and that he had to compensate the children.  

The next day the princess went to the children and thanked them for all their work and called them “Captains of the Sand”. She also gave the news that that work was going to end and that they could live in the castle until they finished school, with a dignified education. The children were very excited, it almost seemed like a dream to them. They gave her a big hug and thanked her very much. In the midst of so much emotion and tears of happiness, the princess decided that she was going to start walking around the kingdom helping children who lived with poor conditions and with no one to take care of them. 

After this beautiful gesture, a wave of solidarity began in the kingdom for the poorest families and the “Captains of the Sand” were congratulated by the kingdom for their bravery. 

                                                                        Joana Costa

The computer screen stared back at him, blank, rebooting, the flash drive blinking back at him, a bright red, too bright for the dark room. Anxiety was corroding through him but that was the usual, he was always nervous, anxious, mind  mind never stopping running in circles. The little baby blue pills did nothing to soothe him, maybe he should see to a therapist and get a good prescription for anxiety pills and not take the weird herbal flasks from his Nanas’ bathroom cupboard.  

Once again, he was distracted, the beeping from the pen called him back, the computer fully rebooted showing him his wallpaper.  

He did not know when he had decided to change it but now it seemed sort of ironic, since he had received the computer some years ago for his 13th birthday, which now seems to have taken place in another universe; the wallpaper had remained the fabricator’s Cillian blue with the little green and rose logo, he had never liked the wallpaper per se but he hated changing things, conforming wasn’t for him, it made his mind confusing and foggy, it is better when things stay the same.  

He was lost again. What was it? The wallpaper, yes, the image was simple, something you would expect a teen’s computer background to be, a photo of him, Louis and Be. He perfectly remembered the day; in fact, he remembered everything, the flash of Alexa’s little pink baby salmon camera, the way she had made the sit on the concrete stairs “Just for a little pic” she had said, he was annoyed at it back then, but now, he felt silly and oddly grateful.  

The memories of summer folded him; the walls, the talks, the warm time, days lazing around by the beach or Bes father’s pool, eating the weird snacks that Louis would bring them every day; back then it seemed like they had all the time in the world, the days dripping slow and hot, sweaty, and peaceful without a care. Now it seemed like the time had run out, been cut short, in his airways in the way out. 

Behind the little E-Mail logo stood his future, his time had come; how fatalist, he was no longer a child, “Maybe a man” he guessed. Yeah, a man. No longer a high school student, now and adult, he was scared like a child, waiting to open a confirmation by his university. Future university: maybe, he didn’t, he hadn’t clicked the E-Mail yet and did not want to. 

His future was staring back at him, and he did not know what to do, oddly enough the summer memories came back, embraced him in warm colours. He thought they would fill him with sorrow, but they did not; they seemed to help, he could remember Bes dimples when she smiled or the way that Louis would sing songs, so oddly in tune, and even Alexa’s baby pink nails, and those thoughts comforted him. Whatever the future held it was not like before, because now, he did not feel so lonely; whatever the future held, he guessed he was ready to face it. 

                                                                       Joana Roque

I wish I was a wave 

  It all started when a young man went to his holiday house and started digging it. The house was located in the South of England and the weather was hot and stuffy.  

  As he was walking through the beautiful house and its colorful and peaceful gardens, he saw, very far away, what seemed to be a pasture. Adventurous as he was, of course he had to investigate the situation. After a long and sweaty walk, the young man finally got there. It was, in fact, a big pasture full of animals! It had pigs, cows, horses and sheep. A very pinky pig caught his attention… But it was late, the sun was setting, and it was getting cold, like the weather in the country. He decided to go back the next day. 

  The sun was bright and warm, the grass was so green and wet from the watering, that smell was very typical of that house. The birds were singing; on the other hand, the air was fresh and breezy. He was feeling very well and peaceful; that was exactly what he needed. A getaway from the city and all its problems. He had a shower, took his breakfast and went to the pasture again. 

  The rest of this beautiful day was added by a great connection he created with the pig he had seen the night before. Now, every time he goes on holidays to his house he stays all day with this pig, whom he likes so much. 

                                                                       Laura Pureza

Once there was a man that lived in a hidden mountain. His dream was to become the most intelligent person on earth; he aspired that one day he would be able to tell all the stories that had ever happened since the beginning of time. He was a very thin and tall old man, whose posture resembled an elegant pine, that contrasted with his fussy and arrogant personality.  

When he was younger, he used to spend his entire days in an old library, filled with equally old and dusty books, reading and memorizing all the words that those wooden shelves carried. Until, on a very gloomy day, he was walking his usual path to the library, when he slipped by accident on a root that was trying to break through the floor. Before he could even get up, an old lady grabbed his hand roughly, and pulled him with an incredible and unpredictable strength. She was wearing a forest green hood and carried an expensive looking walking stick. The man, whose hand was still holding the lady’s hand, looked right in her eyes, ready to demonstrate how grateful he was that she had helped him, when the women whispered at him: 

– I can make you the most intelligent and knowledgeable man on earth, with the condition that you spend the rest of your days alone in the top of a hidden mountain, immersed in books.  

The man, with joyful yet careful words, responded to the old lady: 

– Nothing would make me happier than possess all the knowledge that has ever existed. Please take me to the hidden mountain and make my wish come true! 

The old lady nodded and started walking in the direction of the woods. The man followed her. They walked what it felt like an eternity, until they finally got to the very top of the mountain. He was dazzled by those gigantic trees surrounding a very tall and clerical narrow house. When he looked back, once again to thank the old lady, she was already gone. The man soon realized that being the most intelligent person is not worth it when you do not have anyone to share that same knowledge. He was now the most miserable and lonely person on earth and became known as The Man of the Hidden Mountain.  

                                                                       Leonor Chicó

Honestly, I could sit here and tell you why I like the sun, but I feel as though it would be way more interesting if I told you why I dislike it, so here we go.  

For the record I must tell you I´m a blue-eyed girl, blonde, extremely white and about 5´8 tall, so the main reason I don´t like the sun is the lack of vision. Honestly, why does it have to be so bright? Does it want me to blind me or so?  

The second reason is the fact that my eyebrows are barely noticeable and with the sunlight they get even blonder, as if they weren´t already blond enough (pfff); my facial features are already very discrete, now when people see me, they either think I’m super hippie and shaved my eyebrows or I have a disease. There was a boy in my class that said that I looked like a drawing and the cartoonist had erased my eyebrows.  

The third and final reason is the fact that I can´t lie under  the sun without getting a sunburn, which means I get to look like a lobster for a week. 

Maria Gomes

A little pig 

There was once a little pig that didn’t understand the meaning of his life, he didn’t just want to be an ordinary pig, he always looked up to humans and thought that they did many creative activities.  

This pig was called John and he didn’t want to be like his friends and family, they would just sleep and eat all day. He wanted to be different. John would spend his days watching the Humans surf, and he loved the sea and the beach very much. He told his friends and family that he wanted to try to surf. Even though everyone thought little John was crazy and weird he didn’t give up his dream and every day for eight months in a row he would go early in the morning to the nearest beach and get in the water with a surfboard to catch a wave and stand up on his board. 

After a lot of hard work and dedication, John finally stood up and caught his first wave all by himself! On that day he was so excited and proud of himself that he felt that his hard work really paid off.   

This story shows us that you don’t always have to follow the society’s patterns and you can do things outside the box. Being different isn’t always bad and trying new things is always something positive. You can do anything you dream of and dedicate yourself to it. 

                                                                  Matilde Almeida

 The little prince

Many people ask me why I have this nickname. The thing is: middle schoolers are mean! My actual name is Antoine. I’m Antoine de Saint-Éxupery and I’m French. I don’t really feel French, though. I was only born in France and, when I was little, my parents and I moved a lot, switching around from country to country and never really stopped in one place for too long. It was so bad that for most of my life, I could never go to school, like a normal kid, so I had to be homeschooled. 

It all changed one day. When I was 13, my dear father told me that we would finally settle down, in The United States of America, which meant that I could finally go to school! Nevertheless, it wasn’t as great as they said it would be. 

As I only spoke French at home with my parents, my English was not perfect.  I had this thick accent that made it hard for others to understand me and as usual, people in my class started mocking me. It only got worse. 

 My parents had asked a friend of theirs if he could pick me up and pretend to be my driver, so that I could seem fancy and impress my classmates, but it backfired, and they started to call me “your highness” and “little prince”. Thankfully, the mocking stopped through the course of the year, and we all, eventually, became friends, but the nickname stuck and now, twenty years later, people still call me that. 

 Although it was only for about a year, it was still a rough time for such a little and innocent kind as myself and, to cope with this feeling of isolation, I started to invent stories… they were first about the moon and the stars I saw outside my window when going to sleep, or a casual comet. As the time went by, I started basing these stories on dreams, thoughts, and allegories. My room got filled with stories about not only people, but also flowers, birds, the seasons, foxes, the world and so much more. 

 As I grew up, these stories helped me understand my own feelings and thoughts and now, at 33, I am an established author, with a silly nickname. 

                                                                  Patrícia Cardoso

In a little shelter, nearby a sourly river, there inhabited wacky creatures. Odd creatures with odd manners, and there was an odd jungle with distinctive colors. The forest conveyed a delightful yet strange fear of tanginess. And out of nowhere, out of her head, a girl hummed an upbeat tune: “our little tribe has always been and always will be until the end”. She startled the creatures out of their crib. 

– Time will dissolve if sea monkeys are present.

– Sea monkeys are brine shrimp! – someone said. It was a little fish behind some bushes.

– You too, little girl! – some weird horse-shaped shrimp affirmed. 

 The tribe found the little girl’s skin under his yellow cigarette-stained fingernails. As the little girl went to her shelter, she saw some Van Gogh’s paintings displayed. Some looked like shrimps! Could it be?  

 Instantly, the little girl associated the raw paintings to shripms. She sought them everywhere. Seldom shall it be, said her mom. But she didn’t’ care much. She saw them everywhere: in clouds, graveyard-stones, the tippy toes of her brother, even in her wounds when she’d fall to the ground. One day the girl and her mother were going to the jungle when she saw some bat hanging in the tree who said: “Shrimp mommy!” 
She started dancing and singing her song. Mommy petted the little girl’s head as tears dripped from the corner of her eyelid. They then squirmed away out of the lopsided strum as it went awry. 

                                                                   Pedro Lourenço

The sun was gone. The night was alive and so was the sound of the city outside. Every young creature of the village was in the streets, celebrating the red moon, which marked the 18th anniversary when darkness and evil were defeated. Everyone except for Fae, a very well-known fairy that belonged to one of the most important and ancient families of the village. 

Fae was in her family’s library, looking in the potions’ section, trying to find a way to make her feel better. Since the week before, when the first phase of the huge moon was visible in the sky, she had been feeling weird. She was hearing voices, feeling nauseous at night and even having the weirdest dreams related to the legends about the evil past her society had faced. She asked her wise grandmother if she should be concerned; however, granny told her not to comment this to anyone and just ignore it, because she believed Fae was “just nervous about the fair of the moon and how it might remind her of the death of her parents”.  

Today, however, it was also Fae’s birthday. In fact, she had been born on the same day that the evil war ended, and she lost both her parents. It was just too much to take in. That’s probably why she had been feeling that way. 

While running her hand through a dark corridor of books, her left hand holding a candle, she glimpsed quickly into a blue light coming from the inside of a book. She leaned the candle close to see it, but the light was gone, she then blew off the candle, and the light was back. She grabbed the heavy book and slowly opened it. The light came from a necklace that marked a page. She instantly felt hypnotized by the necklace with a blue stone on it, and for no reason, she put it on, and started reading the page it was marking. She gasped.

There it was, in this random old book, a drawing of her. A drawing of her 18-year-old self, defeating a cloaked dark creature with a sword. Down in the page, written in an ancient fairy language, there was the date of that same day and something about the day was written on it. The prophecy would now be complete. 

“This cannot be real” 

                                                                  Raphaela Nunes

Every city has its story, every street, every building, every ruin reflects an event. Those tales and memories are what makes a city. It’s not about the monuments or the houses. A simple plain street can mean nothing to you and everything to someone else. That someone will look at the bricks and the stones and remember the moments spent there. 

This is the story of the ruins of my city and the memories it holds for me.  

At the heart of the city, every summer, a market takes place. It is an ongoing party, and everyone is invited. There cliches converge and you almost laugh… but then you remember that you’re one of them, and that no one knows how to have fun like us… no doubt about it. I drink a sipe of wine from the market and the purplish sweetness breaks open in my mouth… it even smells like violet. I wish this moment never ended, and for a few minutes I daydream, until suddenly I am interrupted by the church bells Ding Dong, Dong Ding, bringing me back to reality.  

Ria Reker

“When the lights went down” 

In a little town located in the North of Brazil, there existed four brothers. When they were young, they dreamt of becoming soldiers and fighting for their country, but their mom didn´t really like the idea because she feared they could get hurt. The four young kids were very athletic and sportive, each one of them had their specialty but together they were very strong.  

Time went by and they were now grown kids and they were different, but one thing never changed, they still dreamt of being soldiers. They were twenty years old and unfortunately one day their mom passed away, so their thought was that they had to be the strongest soldiers, but not in war, because their mom did not like that. So, the young soldiers went to the Amazon to fight against its extinction in Brazil. They had learnt that something was killing all the animals, one by one. 

The four brothers went to the Amazon alone, because nobody could know that four random people were going to a dangerous place all by themselves. With a knowledge of the forest, the four brothers arrived at a small place called “Amazon Lake”. This place had a small and creepy house, but they went there anyway. It was their first night there when, at 4 am, they started hearing some freaky animal noises. The youngest turned and said: “it might be that…” They ran to the forest and at the long range of view, they saw a creepy spider, 3 meters long… The brothers grabbed a bow and followed the very sneaky spider. They found the spider Covil and when they entered it, they saw that the spider was only protecting the four newborn baby spiders that were being attacked by the animals of the forest. The four thought of what they could do, and they concluded that a mom’s protection is something that will never be over, no matter what.  

The four brothers went back home, and they let the mom spider do her job. 

P.S.: secret meaning, their mom reincarnated as the mom spider and that is why they went away. 

 Rodrigo Costa

There he was, observing his target, who had just entered the palace. Ataïr knew he had to capture him quickly, but since the monument was full of people he didn’t know how. At that same moment, he had an idea, which consisted in blending into the crowd and poisoning him. 

So he didn´t look so suspicious, Altaïr picked up some clothes he found and then he moved to the target. After reaching him, he nicely offered the man a drink so he could gain his trust.  

– Do you have a family? – Altaïr asked. 

– Two kids, one is 10 years old and the other one is 4. What about you? 

– A wife, she´s beautiful, her name is Maria Thorpe. 

They kept talking about their families, and Altaïr started feeling bad for this man who was his target. He created a connection with him and  he no longer had the courage to kill him. So he decided to admit what the plan was, which was a shock to the man, but he understood why since he had been robbing the templars. After this, they started planning his fake death so he could live freely.  

Their plan was a sucess and besides all that happened, they remained good friends. 

                                                                       Tomás Costa

A long time ago, in an Island somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, there was a huge rivalry between the two largest and most feared cat breeds the world had ever seen, Lions and Tigers! Although the Lions had always dominated the territory, on the 5th of May of 1976 a tiger named Romero decided to gather all the tigers and ambush the lions’ habitat, with the aim of making them surrender and establish peace on the island between the two species.

The plan was to gather them all up after a sunny Summer day in the evening and proceed to secretly attack the lions after they finished the deer hunting, when they would be very tired and hungry so they wouldn’t expect any attack by that hour.

Tired of being oppressed by the lions, the tigers accepted the plan right away and Romero started sending a couple of tigers to surround the lions’ habitat. In a couple of weeks, the  tigers already knew the lions’ full schedule, so by Romero’s  order,  they attacked them on the 20th of June of that year.

The attack occurred even better that it was supposed to. It was a success! The Tigers got the lions distracted by the food they had just hunted down so they had nothing to do but  surrender to the tigers.

Vítor Romero

A locked Mystery 

In the middle of a storm, there was a girl running in the forest until her feet turned red. Her name was Ivy, and she was from a small town near the forest. She was lost, looking for something that she couldn´t find. Her body was cold with shivers down her spine. She was soaked and because of the rain, she had slight hair strands glued to her forehead.  Suddenly, she stumbled on something, possibly a key, for its shape. The key was rusty, and muddy.  

Later that night, Ivy found a hiding place inside a cave, which was full of leaves and bushes, and one of the bushes was covering a secret door. She was dancing on the edge of mystery. At that moment, Ivy´s thoughts were full of possibilities, one of them was that she found the situation similar to that of Alice in Wonderland; she even thought that the bunny might possibly appear, but no, instead of waiting for that unrealistic idea, she decided to open the door with the key that she had found. But the key didn´t fit the keyhole, so she had to find another thing to open it. She tried a wooden stick, a rock, but nothing. 

When she was ready to quit and leave the cave, she looked around and saw something that resembled a code, which she immediately used to try and open the door, and it worked! She felt so relieved because she didn´t have a place to spend the night. Without further notice, she went straight to the place the door led to. Her eyes were wide open due to her astonishment. That place was beautiful, out of the world, “completely magical”, as she would describe it.  

Passing through that door, she was so in love with that place that all she wanted was to go back home and share that  special moment with her grandmother. Little did she know that what was in front of her was only a mirage and a trick of her head, and that she had fainted into a deep sleep from stepping on a poisonous plant while running into the forest. 

“Little do we know, 

 the greatest mysteries of the universe  

Hide in the darkest depths 

Within ourselves” 

                                                                    Vitória Ferreira